U-M Students Build Apps in 48 Hours at 5th U-M 48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathon
From Friday, Oct. 28 through Sunday, Oct. 30, over 30 U-M students participated in the fifth U-M 48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathon. Led by Prof. Elliot Soloway, the event is designed to give students a creative and supportive coworking environment and a 48-hour uninterrupted timeframe so that they can focus at a deep level on their projects and the challenges they present.
The Hackathon was sponsored by North American Bancard, Inc., with additional support from Computer Science and Engineering, the Center for Entrepreneurship, Mobiata, LLC, Mobatech, LLC, the Digital Media Commons, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
Over the weekend, student teams worked around the clock in Design Lab 1 in the Duderstadt Center to create projects for the iOS and Android platforms. At the end of the programming period, they demoed an impressive array of apps.
Projects and Teams
Here are the apps that were completed and the teams who developed them:
 |
AirDraw (iOS)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
AirDraw surrounds you with a large virtual canvas that you can draw on. The phone shows only a portion of the entire canvas, respective to which way the phone is pointing, by using the gyroscope and accelerometer sensors. To draw, you touch the screen and move the phone around the (imaginary) canvas in front of you.
Team: Jason Long
|
 |
Basketball (iOS)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
Displays team, news, and other info on U-M Basketball. Makes use of the database of info supplied by the Athletic Department.
Team: Dylan Harris, Miguel Sanchez, and Robert Smart
|
 |
Course Guide (Android)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
The LSA course guide has an iOS application but no Android application; this is what we set out to correct. Going from no Android programming skills and developing an application from scratch we learned many things and have provided a useful service for Michigan students everywhere.
Team: Team MSuite (Apoorva Bansal, Philip Bunge, Bradley Hekman, Arjuna Iyer, Ben Wang, and Patrick Wilson)
|
 |
Find Your Class (Android)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
Find Your Class provides users with directions between classrooms including internal building directions and shortcuts through buildings.
Team: David Adrian, Viknesh Krishnan, Jonathan Pevarnek, Kyle Schiller
|
 |
iTunes Voter (Android)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3
iTunes Voter is an app to vote on music selections with friends. The songs with the most upvotes get played next.
Team: Jason Berlinsky, Jack Wink
|
 |
Locavent (iOS)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3
Locavent is a new kind of event management and sharing app for the iOS platform. With it, you can pin events on a map and quick edit it by clicking the pin. And you can also share your events with friends by switching events to be public. All of the data is stored on a server and you can access all your events on any iOS device. Later possible improvements: Adding an interface for friend invitation and management of events view in different mode.
Team: Tianyin Pan, Roy Zhu
|
 |
Michigan Daily (Android)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3
Michigan Daily is an iOS app that connects content from the U-M student newspaper, the Michigan Daily, and organizes and displays it on an Android device.
Team: Kristin Boyer, Sean O'Neil
|
No screen shot;
this app runs
in the background |
Shake It (Android)
An Android application that runs in the background and allows you to shake the cell phone to skip the current music track for any default music player on your device. Now you don't need to look away to your cell phone to skip the song while you are driving - much safer and easier to use! Also, we made sure that normal walking and jumping doesn't trigger the skipping.
Chen Jiang, Aaven Jin
|
 |
Streamcast (Android)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
Streamcast is a music application for the Android platform that allows a user to stream music from their device to another Android device. Users can now reuse their old Android devices by plugging them into speakers in their households to remotely play music throughout their homes. The application automatically detects all receiving devices and requires no setup from the user other than proving the SSID and password for the desired WiFi Network.
Team: Nader Jawad
|
 |
Teacher's Assist (iOS)
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2
Teacher's Assist is a framework for assisting teachers by monitoring their students' progress in an iPad. Teachers can get a sense of student progress, and review a history of the students' work. Screenshots are recorded from the students' devices and teachers can review the history of their progress.
Team: Alex Kuhn, Alex Migicovsky
|
Hackathon Photos
Below are photos from the end of the event, during which teams presented to the group. To view or download larger photos, just click on the thumbnail image of interest.
Browse the archives from past U-M 48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathons:
Winter 2009 Fall 2009 Fall 2010 Winter 2011
Posted: November 8, 2011 |
